Raído (Dec 2018)
Celebrating above the rubble: the act of celebration as a survival strategy in war
Abstract
Initially published under UNICEF’s patronage, Zlata’s diary, by Zlata Filipović, is a document about the Bosnian War (1992-1995), which took place as a consequence of Yugoslavia’s collapse as a nation. The diary was written by a pre-teenage girl who lived in Sarajevo during the war. Through her eyes, readers find out about war routine, the daily challenges faced by war victims, as well as the survival strategies that those people made up. Among many strategies, one may highlights the very act of writing a diary, and, surprisingly, the act of throwing parties. This paper aims to interpret the relevance of these parties to Zlata’s life during the war. Such a reading is based on a few concepts developed by three thinkers: Georges Didi-Huberman, who connects the idea of survival to the image of fireflies; Michel de Certeau, who writes about the practice of everyday life; and Peter Pál Pelbart, and his ideas on biopolitics, community, and subjection/sovereignty.
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